October 01st, 2024

Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I was on the phone to a leading mental health organisation on Tuesday and they greeted me with "Happy mental health awareness month..."

*Suicide is at an all-time high.
*Cost of living is at an all time high.
*There is a rental crisis in the major capital cities.
*Domestic violence shows no signs of slowing down.
*Children are being denied access to loving and capable parents, because the other doesnt with them to have a 50/50 share.

It's great we have R U OK Days and Mental Health Awareness Months.

But there's nothing to celebrate. Nothing to be happy about. Unless you're an organisation profiting from the problem of people experiencing suicide ideation, psychosis, depression... the list goes on now doesn't it? 😒

When is the Federal and State Governments going to put their funding into organisations, like Good Better Best Men, that are creating scalable positive change in our community?

When is the facade going to crack, and this pseudo hyped up idea of impactful change, by creating only the awareness of real issues affecting our communities, going to transform into actual results?

Yes, it'll be a happy mental health awareness month, when we stop paying lip service to the issues and continue with the narrative that "stigma still exists".

The stigma won't exist when everyone is experiencing a mental health issue, driven crazy by the corporate businesses "being the change", but only talking about the issues instead of preventing them.

Do we need to get to that point? Or does something need to change? And change fast?

Even discussing the current "cure" to mental health problems is an insult. Referring someone to a "professional" after experiencing trauma is feeding this system that is on a loop of "break them first, fix them later" approach to mental health.

If we know there are problems, and there are preventative solutions, why not build them? Why not scale them?

We need action. Not days to celebrate.

Another method is to get suicide prevention training to publicans who care about their community.

Then championing these publicans to build communities from a place of compassion, not poker-machine driven profits.

Message me, Jono, the original Pub Whisperer, to discuss ways of turning talk into action in this space.

Together, let's create a world where suicide doesn't exist.

A world where a "mental health awareness month" no longer exists.

Because poor mental health is a thing of the past.
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#suicideprevention
#mentalhealthawarenessmonth2024
#mentalhealthawareness
#thewhispererteam
#thepubwhisperer
#actionisneedednotawarenessdays